“Everyone is a photographer”,seems to be the thing to say when a professional photographer wants to offer their services.

We all have the means with which to take a photograph these days.

But really, does that make everybody professional?

If you own a really powerful car that will hit 160 mph in a few seconds, and has the ability to accelerate out of trouble at high speed, does that make you a professional motor racer? I don’t think so.

Photography is an art. I know, there are many professional photographers out there who would tell me that it isn’t an art, they will point out that it’s a business and a way to make an income. They fail to see it as an art because it doesn’t fit their view of their own life and goals.

Photography is image making. Often, artists are ‘makers’.

The first contraptions that took photos were boxes with complicated lenses, and manually controlled exposure times. The photographer had to open the lens cap and allow light and the perceived image to become exposed to the plate inside. Then after the photographer stopped counting the seconds, they put the cap back on to block the light, they went away and developed the negative into a permanently fixed image that they could wave around in front of an editor or sell to the people captured in the image.

At that time, around the 1880s, painters were getting pretty upset about this new machine. It was clearly a threat to their livelihood of selling paintings, portraits especially.

People bought paintings back in those days like they bought tables and chairs for the dining room.

If painters, who were artist and not house painters, saw that the camera threatened their industry, then surely they knew an artisan object when they saw one. After all, they’d been in the business of creating art longer than the newly invented “professional photographers”.

Even today a room without images on the walls is an uncomfortable place to stay. A bit like a prison cell, a place without soul.

Painters who created art, were also in the business of creating the homely soul that occupied a house. Portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, were all great sellers and kept painters in food and shelter.

The photographic machine was a brand new piece of technology that was clearly going to blow Van Gogh and company out of the picture.

The intellectual battle of wits between painters and the newfangled photographers went on for about 40 years. Then one day, a very confident painter, maybe Picasso, pointed out that, so far, painting and photography have got along just fine together. It’s no threat to the brush and palette, people still love the look of paint and the early adopters love the black and white images that photographers are doing.

Photographers and painters relaxed, but just to be sure about things, painters everywhere started painting people to look like bananas and apples instead of the traditional idea of looking like they did.

That put things right, because it gave photographers a chance to capitalise in the market for portraits of people who wanted to see themselves in a dignified way.

Many people didn’t buy the self-image of themselves with a Bob Square pantshead and banana fingers. Picasso had cornered that market and was making a bucket load of money convincing people that from where he stood, they had square heads and banana fingers.

Photographers were treated to regular updated versions of their favourite toy. Carrying a big box around with them and keeping lots of flash powder available in the wet weather was a difficult task.

Kodak stepped in and showed photographers a new version of their high tech camera. The Boy-Scout became popular in the 1930s because it was portable and later the famous Brownie became the go to camera for amateurs and professionals, Kodak soon developed it with an internal flash.

Imagine the looks on photographer’s faces when they realised that to be a country-wide professional photographer, offering to travel and take a family portrait, or to click the likeness of some statesman in New York, would lead to regular income from their work.

Sure, there had been professional camera people around since the first box-like Kodak camera came on the market in 1900, but it was an expensive piece of kit and required knowledge to get a well finished shot. Maybe, it was an art.

Mid-twentieth century, post war economical booms and the new technologies made advances with camera tech a regular thing. Plastics had a hand in changing manufacturing views and created the possibility of a cheaper and smaller camera than previous versions.

Soon, everybody owned a camera, often it was the Kodak Brownie which came in handy around Christmas times in most families.

Post-Christmas January, rolls of camera film would sit and gather dust on the mantelpiece until May, then somebody took them to be developed. Families would take a few moments to gasp at the blotchy looking faces in the photos, then put them away in the drawer to be forgotten for the next ten years.

Professional photographers started to see the value of all this new equipment that was easy to carry, and flash guns that could be stashed in the same bag that they used for travel.

Film rolls became a little cheaper and the set-up for your own dark-room became simple.

Artistically minded photographers, driven by a deep desire to connect with people and capture that very special moment, began to offer their artistic services to individuals and organisations who need to record an image of their greatness.

The skills of a professional photographer were the same as that of an artist. To “capture” something special in a small moment of truth. Nobody was going to pay good money for a snap shot the same as dad could do at Christmas, it had to have a little magic in it.

Professional photographers had a problem, they had to convince the client that although the whole photographic sitting would be over in five minutes flat, the results would be a worthy piece of art to adorn the home.

While painters and artists suffered at the easel and typewriters for weeks on end, photographers could set up a scene and take a series of images within minutes, and then deliver the results hours later.

Fast art had been invented and it suited a lot of busy people with empty wall space.

The popularity of becoming a professional photographer increased, everybody thought they’d have go and make a few bucks.

The introduction of the Polaroid Camera made it even faster, and people like Andy Warhol saw the opportunity to keep artistic integrity, yet still be a capitalist. He would simple take a photo and tell the person that it is art — and they would believe him. To this day, his photos, paintings and Polaroids are worth millions.

Andy Warhol painted, made lithographs, and took photos. People said he was an artist. He was a clever businessman who took a leaf out of Picasso’s book and realised that he had to convince the people that what he did was of high value to them.

“Computers are useless, they can only give you answers.” Pablo Picasso

Picasso, Andy Warhol, and others all knew that to achieve their goals as artists, they had to work with the expectations of the people, their customers.

“I want to live as a poor man, but with money.”, Pablo Picasso.

Photographers find themselves in the same position as the painters of the past. When the camera came along and threatened the value of the painter’s work, they thought that painting would become extinct.

Everybody is different and has varied needs. Just because a person owns an expensive camera, or their Smart Phone can take nicely finished photos, it doesn’t make them instant professionals.

Photography is a business that enjoys the possibility of being an art. Anytime the photographer, who is skilled, realises that she is more of the artistic bent than of the all business and money type of person, she can learn to combine the skills of capturing the special moments.

The ability to understand light and colour, the looking deeper mentality that requires knowledge of self and others to achieve, and the business skills to offer something special that the painters of yesterday immediately saw as a threat. Fast Art with a camera.

“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”— Alfred Stieglitz

To capture the image of another human being is a difficult task, touching the soul of that person, using conversations and learning about their inner-world gives the photographer the ability, at least, to see something real in the person that they themselves and others don’t always bring to the surface.

Telling Moments and Beautiful Gestures

Those telling gestures, flinches, nods of the head, the way a subject moves their hands, all these are indications of an inner world that is not spoken. Gestures are not speech, the movement of the lips as we speak can tell the listener whether the speaker is being serious, sarcastic or jovial.

The way a person holds themself as they relate a story about their life, their views on a subject or an opinion about Brexit, will tell a photographer something about their true attitude and beliefs to themselves and life.

Alfred Stieglitz’s idea that a photograph gives us something that is more than reality is a truth, as far as we can agree.

A portrait is about the subject. The objective of the photographer is to find as much information about the portrait sitter as possible then capture those moments as they are brought together in one gesture, or set of gestures.

The camera only captures a fraction of time, a tiny flash of life that is offered to another person, the photographer, who must focus with his or her mind to an extent where they are listening and watching with empathy.

It’s not about the Machine

Taking a photograph and assuming that the machine will give you an image, an impression of a portraited person, is a foolish thought. The technology that we have today is confusing photographers into believing that the task is easy. ‘Point and shoot, just make sure that you’re using the best equipment and you’ll get the best results.’

If a portrait photographer goes in to meet a client, telling them they have one hour to get the job done, setting up lights according to a system well practised, and posing the client according to the set up, then no portrait of that particular person can be achieved. The whole procedure would be about the photographer trying to photograph an object under certain conditions to achieve certain effects that are pleasing to whoever might see the end result. Many head-shots for companies are done in this manner. And they are pleasing to their clients and customers. They are not personal portraits.

A portrait is a hard thing to achieve and it requires skills and practice to see that little moment in time that shows an expression that might just sum-up a strong characteristic about a person. To capture that moment takes the upmost vigilance from the photographer. The machine won’t do it for you.

We want to see who a person is, the photograph can give us many clues to a personality if it is shot with care and attention to the subject. We cannot get into the psychology of a person and photograph that part, as much as we can’t paint or carve a representation of a person’s inner world. We can guess at it, though. As photographers practising portrait photography we can use empathy to feel our way into the important aspects of a person’s character.

All we know is that empathy helps us to understand other people on a deeper level. Psychology tells us that when we express ourselves with empathy, our brain switches off the part of the brain which deals with ourselves, it basically goes into “forget me, listen to her”, mode.

Photographers tend to become emotional about their work because of the need to understand what they are looking at – the subject caught in the lens.

Through empathy and a trained eye, an eye that notes the gesture that comes from a deeper place, a portrait photographer will be able to capture something that is deeper than what is normally seen in the everyday gestures of a person. That moment, a flash of insight on behalf of the astute photographer, reveals a subtle expression of character in the portraitee that shows us a reality that our eyes often brush over in everyday life.

To capture the art of it, the portrait that is a moment of reality normally not seen, is the whole point of a portrait. It is the practice of creating a closeness between two strangers, between lovers, an investigation into the personality of a famous celebrity or even a knowledgeable portrait of your cat.

It is the revelation of a rich reality that we wish for in everyday life, but often have little time to study and enjoy. To freeze that moment and keep it, present it well framed on a wall somewhere, gives us that opportunity to take time to study the moment when a deeper reality was seen.

The cat is the most published image on the internet. They are cute, and fluffy and look like fun. In fact, they are none of that, they scratch, are moody and demanding, cats seem to have the super-power of taking over a household and turning the wanna-be-owner into a member of staff.

Try to photograph a cat and it will all depend on the mood of the cat. It will sit and stare at you, turn its head away, refuse to cooperate. Cats generally don’t do portraits, they are too self-involved, and so it is hard to get the empathy going between a cat and photographer.

We can study the gestures of a cat and get an idea of their habits, we can take photos of them expressing themselves with such gestures as preening themselves, sleeping, yawning, playing with a toy, but we will never really know them enough to be able to create a cooperation that is essential to a well done portrait.

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”— Elliott Erwitt

To achieve the living moment of a deeper reality than normally seen, is to delve into the inner world of a person through speech and questions, to get to know the sitter through observation, and to avoid your preconceived notions about them, but to find what you didn’t know was there before.

To capture that moment with the right lighting, the camera ready at all times, an atmosphere that enlivens candid conversation and a photographer who has the skill to help the sitter forget that a camera is in the room, is the art of taking a great portrait.

A portrait that a person hangs on their wall for every visitor to see, and the person themselves to be confronted with each day, should always be an image that has caught and frozen that special gesture which shows the world the nobility and dignity that every human being possesses.

Digital life has changed everything, including photography and how we take photos.

Everybody can take a photo, just pick up a plastic cased digi-machine and point and shoot. The results appear to be astounding, flabbergasting. For a while digital photography, it’s amazing capacity to balance the light and darkness, to tone the colours and pick up the smallest details of an object that caught our eye, made us all go nuts and buy some sort of digital camera.

Smartphone or DSLR or Mirrorless, take your choice and enjoy photographing the world as you see it.

The question is, are we really photographing the world as we see it?

Great Equipment

Do we take the time to get over the amazing technology and stop long enough to look at the object that caught our eye?

The world is full of techies, gear-freaks, and early adopters who seem to be hell bent on using the latest, bestest equipment that’s on offer. They swear blind that their camera, the latest technology, is what you need if you want to take great shots and if you want to be taken seriously as a photographer.

Digital photography has overcome many problems that photographers used to love working out for themselves. How to set the shutter speed, the aperture size and the distance, the shadow, the light, the trick of adjusting the ASA (ISO) rating up a notch to trick the camera into working as if you had a fast film roll inside.

Self Reflection in Action

Now, all you do is twist the dial and set the whole camera onto “P” setting if you don’t want to control things. It’ll take great shots when you push the button.

My question is, why are you and me taking photographs?

The camera type doesn’t matter so long as you have a lens that leads to a box of tricks that will capture the moment.

Many a street photographer has proved her or his worth by using a camera that most gear-heads would sneer at.

Today, many photographers find that they can get the shot with a smartphone that has high quality. There a many good examples of street photographers and portrait photographer’s work that were taken with simple cameras. The lens on the phone was just right and the basic settings were enough to get the shot.

The real thought is that you are seeing something important. You feel something about a little corner of the world that you bumped into and so your mind begins to focus, to engage with the object, and when you feel that you have understood it, you frame it and keep it – in your thoughts.

Man attempting to Capture a Thought

Photography allows us to frame the moment that we have considered deeply and capture it so that we can go back and take another look.

This allows us to ponder our own ability to see things correctly, to ask questions about why we thought the object or person in the photo was worth keeping. Maybe, we even get to point where we ask “what on earth was I thinking?” when we realise that our momentary ‘stopping’ and focusing was probably a stupid idea, at that time.

Taking photos changes our view of the world. A perspective is a mentality and the person involved in looking makes decisions about what is important to them based on their biases.

Digital photography has led to the snap-shooter who can click off several hundred shots in a very short time. There’s no processing costs to think about, and if you shoot enough rolls of pixels a pretty interesting shot might show up amongst the several hundred shots that day.

A photographer soon discovers that cheap shots can lead to a lot of work, sorting and culling photos, hoping that the little gem is in there someplace.

And when the little-gem turns up in your workflow, you tag it with glee and start adjusting the colours and the exposure and the rest.

For some reason, you saw something interesting, the little-gem, and took a shot that turned out to be interesting. Then during the after-shot workflow process you decided to change what you saw.

We have a tough time just looking at things. The world is an ever changing fast flow place. To stop and look, is hard.

When we have an interesting shot and can remember the reason why we stopped to photograph it, we should accept the decisions that we made at that moment, the framing decisions and the feeling about it, and keep it.

It’s when we sit down at the computer and see the photo that seemed so interesting that we allow a new judgement to kick in. Our mind becomes objective and critical about the shot taken. The new thought is a piggyback idea of why we took the shot. We start to judge our own ability to make a decision about what’s a good photo and what’s not. We then begin to experiment with the controls in the software and try and bend the world into our own biased opinion of what we saw.

At that point, we are in danger of becoming fiction makers.

Photography has always been a principle medium for recording images of the world. Today, we look at photos that were taken during the Great Depression, and other photos taken of small moments of joy in the lives of normal, everyday people. We hope that what we see in these photos is an honest recording of history.

How often have you come across a photograph of a man or a woman, an unknown person who is laughing at something out of frame, a glass on a table next to a half full bottle of wine? And asked yourself who is this person, why are they laughing and what are they celebrating? The photo elicited emotions in you. You began to engage and ask questions. At which point the photo becomes important.

The photo of cheer and joy reflects many feelings about our own lives. Joy is something that all sensible people seek.

A photo of a mother and child who are starving and maybe close to their end, reflects on our fear of how cruel the World can be.

Lady and Cat playing Piano

Some people have travelled the World to discover the true meaning in a photo that they have found. Others have travelled to far and distant places in search of a meaningful photograph.

Taking photographs is a passion, a hobby and a profession. Regardless of the reason, there is a responsibility involved about what you decide is a worthy moment for memory and how much thought you put into framing the shot and adjusting the colour and light.

All of these things will affect the outcome. The moment is fleeting and your chance for a great shot, whether it be a wedding photoshoot, a portrait or a major event in public, is a matter of skill. How skillful are you with your thoughts? How often have you taken a shot knowing it won’t be up to scratch, but you have the backup of Photoshop to support correcting laziness or mistakes?

Photography requires a person to be a thinker. Your main tool is grey-matter between the ears.

At the time of taking a photo the photographer should already have made a decision at the attempt to save that particular moment. And hoping that it went right, that the end result will be satisfactory of that moment, and this has a lot to do with being conscious in the moment.

Digital photography encourages a person to document their daily lives, who knows, it might be worth it. But the mindless snapping of selfies isn’t necessarily a recording of the self. Doing what? Interacting with self?

Self interacting with the world around is a legitimate way of remembering one’s own experiences without having our own face in every shot.

If anyone who is a Selfie Addict should look back at their life through photos, I think they will become bored within minutes.

The photographs that we treasure have magic in them.

Being conscious of the taken moment, knowing the feeling and recognising that something is important is a reflection of the magic within ourselves.

To take a photo at this moment, to know that skill is at hand, and to put mind, body and soul into this small and fleeting moment, is to take a photograph that includes self, somewhere, in the image too.

Artists are always seeking the magical moment, and sometimes they find it and keep it. But to do this, to work magic, the magician must train herself to work the tools that transform the base idea into the splendour of light that human magic really is.

Magic; that particular thing in a photograph that can’t be named with words. It’s just there – and everybody knows it.

Photography is one way to look at the world we live in. There are other ways. If you take photographs and want to be better, to take great wedding shots, portraits or street shots, then developing the skills of thinking while working are as a important as is the basic equipment needed to technically capture the shot.

All the gold in the world…

Golden Moment on the Beach

To be a good photographer is to be a thinking person. There are people who hate thinking – they hate using their brains because it requires introspection and patience especially when you discover that you are just as capable of being an idiot as the next idiot.

The real thinker knows that mistakes are inevitable when working with a rough stone that isn’t yet ready for the building work.

All the technical equipment in the world won’t make you a great photographer. Time and patience, enjoyment of the process and journey, and the ability to see deeply into your own environment and interact with it, is the path that leads to great photographs.

Your view of life in Frames

Looking through the lens means that we see the world in a framed view. As a photographer you are making decisions about how to frame what you see, and how you want others to perceive the object that you have chosen.

Any photographer who believes that they can learn to take great photos by following the “rules”, will soon discover that they aren’t taking photos but recording mundane activities or objects without any thought.

How we see things is an individual and unique experience. You should work with that idea and learn to control the camera so that it frames and records the light, colour, darkness and shadow, the composition and all its nuances, as you see it. Not according to somebody’s rule of thumb procedures that you read about on the internet.

The frame is important, it gives us the ability to isolate an object and say, “this is important, look at this.”

Photography is an activity that requires you to become responsible for the shots you take, especially if other people are going to be viewing them.

To be able to take a shot because you think it’s important, it’s special, and then have other people stop in their tracks and look at your photo is a success. You made them stop and look, stop and think.

As a photographer you are naturally drawn to styles and subjects that interest you only. You can’t please everybody and you will have people look at your shot and tell you that they don’t get it, or understand the point of the shot.

If you get too “arty” about how you see the world you will begin to do what many of the artists have done in the past. You will begin to disconnect from the mainstream of thought and see the wonder in the oddest of subjects. To be able to convey the vision of the odd or rare idea is very difficult and often leads an artist or photographer to becoming eccentric and misunderstood.

There is plenty in the world that is interesting and often passed by in daily life. A good photographer will be able to focus on these things and bring them back home to the viewer, to make something special of an everyday object and show a viewer that, until now, they have been taking it for granted and have therefore not looked at it.

It doesn’t really matter what your subject is, it’s about how much thought and effort you put into being able to see it properly. To penetrate its essence, like a master of zen.

Half the thrill of photography is to seek out interesting subjects and photograph them – knowing that these moments may have been fleeting, or only occur once in a while.

Another fun aspect of photography is to take a shot and later discover that there’s something in the frame that you didn’t notice when taking the shot.

Making mistakes is part and parcel of learning to do do anything. If you make mistakes, you can get upset. that’s the wrong attitude, really. Noticing that you get something wrong half the time, is your brain telling you that you know what’s important to work on. You can’t progress in the art of chasing the light without tripping over now and again.

Learning to take great photos can only happen when you practise. Everyday is a good idea, if not, at least each week a couple of times.

If you find yourself looking to other photographers work as an aspiration for your own goals as a photographer, then be sure that you understand what you see in their work that turns you on a as a photographer. That way you are looking at their way of looking at the world and not simply trying to figure out which buttons they pressed at which settings to get the shot.

Emulation is a fine way to grow, copycat procedures and Apps are a dead end for a creative photographer who wants to be in demand at some point soon.

Copying will never lead to self-confidence. It is a mindless activity that doesn’t allow your own opinions to engage in the action and therefore leaves you with something that looks pretty good, but you haven’t got a clue how you achieved it.

Emulation of a style will lead you to trying to figure out how a photographer achieved the end result.

Does your favourite photographer use a lot of Photoshop procedures to achieve the results, or do they spend a lot of time setting up a scene so that the light and circumstances are perfect to get what they want?

Asking questions of yourself and your favourite photographers is good way to move forwards.

Digital Photography Equipment and what you will need.

Digital Photography has become a big market for the major manufacturers. It’s expensive.

One look at the cost of a digital camera, full-frame or not, a lens and a set of lighting, is enough to make you fall off your tripod.

If you are low on cash and wisely want to avoid debt, you can search for a second-hand camera online and get a good bargain, a camera in great shape and a fairly low shutter-count .

Lenses are also possible to buy second hand. A lens is a delicate object and must be looked after for it to stay in good shape. The glass is important to the quality of focus and ability to capture what you see. Most people take care of their lenses and protect them, so when buying second hand you will mostly encounter good lenses, in great condition.

If you buy second hand be sure that you can send it back if it’s not up to standard – useful and functional.

Which camera you buy is your choice. Look at it in terms of usefulness to your needs, a product that has good track record for durability and see what other people say about it’s usability, what do they say about the controls on the camera body? Did the manufacturer make a mistake in putting buttons in the wrong place? Think of all of these things when you buy.

Don’t listen to the equipment snobs. They tend to deny that they are snobbish about having the latest technology but they do get mugged often because of their driving need for newest equipment on the market.

New technology is great. Photoshop is your darkroom, the camera is your tool to get what you want. It isn’t a Porsche or a Rolls-Royce. It should be up to scratch for your work.

Whatever you have, use it and push it to the limits. That takes time. You will want to test different lighting situations. Natural light vs artificial lighting like flash, or strobe-lighting.

Think of light as simple bright stuff that we can utilise. The light in a flash unit is intensified to give us something brighter than room light. Therefore , we don’t want to flash into the object directly, we want to be able to bounce the light off a white surface and back onto the subject. A room lamp is light. Experiment with it, change the bulb for a white light, an Osram or a stronger wattage.

There are no rules about light that says only expensive flash units will do, that’s rubbish. Cheap lamps with a well homemade reflector (a white umbrella that costs 3 euros is better than nothing), will do a good job of giving you the light you want. Mobile phones have lovely little lights on them that spray small arcs of light onto a still life subject sitting on your table.

If you fall into the trap of believing more equipment will make you a better photographer, you will fail to work with the tools at hand. Always wanting more, better, up to date technology, will blur your focus and cause you to go through unnecessary phases of learning what is not important.

Focus on seeing and working with the camera and light that you have. When your bank account looks healthier than now, you will probably be better informed about what you want to upgrade to and make a good purchase.

Photography is a wonderful way to spend a life. Working with images and enjoying the advanced technology. Working with people and looking at simple everyday objects that suddenly become important because you took the time to stop and look. Do your best to help other people see the magic in your work by becoming a great photographer.